I forgot about this thread, I have to say , I have 30,000 miles on after my oil change on the shocks, and they are still good. I plan to change the oil again this winter.
I have the harbor freight vac in the link in an above post.
I vac out the old dump the container, put new fluid in the tank , then draw a vacuum and let it flow in. I used 9oz.

 

used harbor frieghts 24 buck extractor. put in vice upside down, insterted hose and 5 minutes later drained (3) 4oz cups of fluid. put shock in vise with opening up and put 12 oz's in small container and used A TURKEY BASTER to refill it. it burped a few times, but it went right in. took about 5 minutes. capped it off and will intall lines and shocks when it gets a little warmer. used 5 wt belray. thanks for the original posters for the tip on the extractor. I have an 08 and bought some used takeoffs from an 2013. supposed to handle more wieght.

 

This video makes it super easy!

 

It has been a while since this thread was written, and I ended up going with Ohlins shocks, and found out that changing the oil was really just a waste of time. The Ohlins shocks are a ton better even with the oil changed.

 

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Oh well i see this is an old thread but since someone else dug it back up i thought why not go for it!/LOL!!!

I just did the same exact thing to my 09 flhtcu using 10w shock oil and test road it today too and found approx 12lbs air in the shockes resulted in a much more compliant acceptable ride vs before doing shock oil change where i had to run 30-35lbs air in the shocks to not bottom out but doesnt botttom out now with 12lbs air in shcoks riding solo.

No i am not saying the rear of the bike now rides like a cushy caddy,but with the new 10w shock oil enabling me to run APPROX 3X LESS AIR PRESSURE AND STILL NOT BOTTOM OUT has taken the real bad back breaking/shocking hammering experience i used to get when hitting a fairly lrg bump/swell/raised portion of road completely out of the picture which is great.

If i had to put a # on it i'd est the ride from stock OEM rear airshocks shocks on my bike improved /being less harsh & shocking by approx 25% or so + - 5% which was worth the small amount of effort,time & money it took to do that vs the result i got.

And at the same time i went from 10w oil in forks to all SE heavy fork oil and that was a nice improvement too,now the forks dont dive as much when braking and the bike also seems to be better planted (front forks wise) in corners too along with rear shocks still feeling decently planted when cornering in my test ride too .

Now are the rear shocks as good a nice new set of ohlins properly setup and dialed in by Howard,i think NOT!!/LOL!!!

But for now the improvements i got doing what i just did to the front forks & rear shocks on the bike are positive enough for me to seriously think about putting off going for the pricey Ohlins at this time.

But lets see how i feel about that after doing more test rides with the wife on the back & bags loaded for a few tanks of fuel before i make my mind up for sure on getting the Ohlins for this/2016 riding season.

BTW,i also used mighty vac to drain and refill shocks which worked great,but i tried to use it to refill the forks using Jims special tool along with a mighty vac and NG!

Whats happens is the bike/forks only have approx 18,500 miles on them but when i pulled vac on them they would only hold vac for a short time for one try which wasnt enough time to suck a full load of oil into a fork tube.

I think thats because the vacuum must be pulling what is likely a small/thin film of oil away from somewhat worn fork seals that didnt leak fork oil but under vacuum the fork seals were evidentially worn just enough to allow air past them .

But when Jims shows their fork filling tool advertisement its being used to refill fork tubes that have just been completely cleaned & rblt with new fork seals etc that will seal better therefore holding vacuum long enough to suck a full load of oil into a fork tube which unfortuantely for me wasnt the case with used somewhat worn fork seals.

I then removed ign sw **** and faring skirt etc to gain access fork cap bolts and was able to get the fork refilled from there with NP which wasnt as bad and or didnt take as long to do either as some people posting here said they had issues doing that lucky for me wasnt an issues.

Doing the for oil change & refill the std way also allowed me to run approx 1/2 qt atf thru each fork tube as a cleaning flush till all that came out was nice fresh looking red atf which was a good thing because getting all the black dirt/contamination out of the fork tubes thus keeping it out of the fresh fork oil that should extend the srv'c life of the fork seals too due to less scraping type friction wear because i got all the contamination & dirt particles all flushed & removed from the fork tubes.

Then i finished up with running approx 4oz of the Se hvy fork oil thru each tube till the atf was gone and fresh Se fork oil was coming out prior to refilling with SE hvy fork oil .

I did that to ensure most if not all the atf was washed out of the fork tubes though even if a little atf was left in the fork tubes it would not have bothered anything or caused any ill effects at that point because most importenly all the dirt/contam had already been washed out and ATF isnt that bad of choice for fork oil either.

Scott

 

You don't need all that to do it a simple clear squeeze bottle like you see mustard in will work just fine.

 

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Well i didnt go into full details because when vac failed on refilling forks i tried basically the same thing using an old school oiling can that has a thumb operated hand pump to refill fork tubes which seemd to work well on 1st fork tube i tried getting the oil pumped into the fork in 1 min flat.

But that was until i removed the oil can after pumping in 10.8oz for fresh fork oil just to find the fork tube had built up internal pressure as it filled with the fork oil (due to fork cap still being on the fork not allowing air to escaped as fork tube filled with oil) & when i removed the oil can to install the drain screw in the fork the fresh fork oil litterally blew out of the fork tube like it was under 20-30psi pressure quickly blowing 80-90% of the fresh fork oil i just installed all over me ,the bike & garage flood before i could get the drain screw started.

So tried to refill other fork tube using same method and got same exact messy result so had to abort filling the fork using that method which is when i went to the std fork oil change procedure that took 1/4 the time to do then i wasted trying the supposed better ways to get around doing the stated std way that BTW wasnt near as difficult to do as others had posted here in the recent past making made it out to be along with it not taking as long as they made it sound too.

Took me litterally 15-20mins tops taking my time the 1st time doing it on this bike to get to the fork caps and remove them,next time should take 15mins tops to get to & remove fork caps..

Scott

 

Well Thanks everyone for all the information on replacing the oil in the rear shocks on the Touring bikes. I just replaced mine in a 2014 Limited. The right side shock had 315 cc's of oil & the left side had 365 cc's of oil no wonder the wife & I had bumpy rides. I replaced the oil with Amsoil Shock therapy #10, i put in 320 cc's on each shock & put in 8# of air. We will see how it goes when we take a ride. I used the Mityvac to vac out the oil & cleaned it real good & reinstalled the new oil with the mityvac it as well to eliminate all the air bubbles as possible.

 

Anyone ever used 15 or 20 wt? I have seen that Redline recommends 30 wt for Harleys. I have thought about mixing 10 and 30 wts to come up with 20 wt and trying that.

 

I'd be cautious about using the Red Line Heavy (30 Wt.) in the shocks. It may be OK for forks, but sounds a bit heavy for the shocks.


I used Spectro 7.5W Shock oil (High VI) in my shocks with good results and many here have used 10W.


Also note that fork oil and shock oil aren't necessarily the same. I use 15W or 20W fork oil in the front forks. Shock oils usually have a higher viscosity index (VI).